You might think the plotline there sounds vaguely familiar--and horrifying. Read the full plot summary here. I'll give you a minute.

Okay.

Does this remind you of:a.) The Cask of Amontillado (Wikipedia Cliff Notes)b.) Why are you doing this? Does my insomnia make you happy? (secret answer: yes, of course it does)c.) ...did that guy seriously say "always and always and always"? Also, fuck you, Seperis.

Anyone else see his terrified eyes over the edge of the brick wall as he slowly runs out of steam and, cold, alone, and helpless, is unable to even scream out his horror?

Does it help to know that in the next episode he gets out again? I think one of the other trains has a problem near where he is bricked up and he offers to help. The tracks are laid, the walls knocked down and he returns to work.

My children don't seem to have a problem with it. Then again, children, by and large, are bloodthirsty little creatures, very interested in other people getting punished and with very little idea of levels or appropriate response or empathy to enable them to understand the full horror of something like this.

Also in answer to the Thomas part of that article, 1) the diesel/steam thing, mostly the conflict between the steam engines and the diesels is presented as bigotry; they have no real reason to dislike each other other than they are made different and it is shown that this isn't sensible or fair. 2) Sir Topham Hatt's behaviour seems very wrong to us, the way he treats the engines, but I think to children it doesn't seem too bad. Partly because of what I said above about their perception and partly because they are used to being told what to do by adults and having to obey even though the orders may seem to them to be strange, unreasonable, unfair and in direct opposition to their own desires. I'm not saying that what he does is right, just that it probably doesn't seem to children to be too different to what their own parents do.

It is wierd what can give rise to childhood trauma. Fortunately I missed this one but I still can't look at Mog the Forgetful Cat because at one point she gets shut outside in the rain at night and her owners won't let her in.

My childhood trauma is the stone critters in Narnia. The ones having the Xmas party. That description of them stuck forever with their faces crumbling away... Because it was made obvious about all the others that were turned back, but not them. (Wow, that one came out of the depths.) Mind you, most of the Narnia books are utterly horrible when you think about them. And Neil Gaiman didn't help.

I think it's kind of funny anyone who has read the Babar books bothered SAYING WITH SURPRISE that they are colonialist propaganda -- also that they compared them to Tarzan, when really they are more like the Jungle Book; Kipling is clearly their direct antecedent.

And yeah, wow, I am suddenly glad that Thomas the Tank Engine wasn't part of my childhood. That's so disturbing! And very, very Poe. Ick.

What's really weird is that as a kid, I really liked Barbar! But I didn't watch it much, since I was Chinese and my mom didn't really show me 'western' shows. I was watching the episode where Barbar becomes King with my friend's mother when I realized that Barbar gave off some super bad vibes. I think they tried to dim it down in the show compared to the books, since from the cracked article the books sound way worse, but I was still sitting there feeling indignant while trying not to say anything to my friend's mom, who loves Barbar. I mean, why do they need to wear clothes? They're elephants. Why did Barbar walk upright, and the 'uncivilized' elephants did not, and why was the upright elephants shown off as much better off? It definitely pinged as being colonialist propaganda to me, 10min in. I ended up leaving feeling very sour where Barbar was concerned.